Jumped at DeLand this weekend for the first time since 2008. I mostly kept to myself, jumped with some out of towners, had a good time for the most part except...

5 minutes after I arrive at the dropzone, a TI approaches me with a nasty tone of voice "What are you doing landing in the fucking experienced area, how many jumps do you have, barely 100?" I started giving a confused reply and he stomped off, I have no idea what that was all about, I always landed in the slow canopy area since I was jumping my sky barge this weekend.

Occurrence number 2: an AFF instructor yells at me from across the hangar sarcasticly "Did you lose your helmet up there or what pal?" I said "No I didn't wear a helmet today." Another AFFI says "Hehe I think he's being sarcastic with you.." then the first AFFI says "You're a student wear a damn helmet or don't jump here." I said "I hope you don't talk to your students that way, and I'm not your pal, guy." He walked off I'm guessing to check in to see who I was and how many jumps I have or something. He didn't make eye contact with me for the rest of the weekend.

Other than that I got along with the other jumpers very well, but I'd say 99% of them were out of towners. Carl is great, nice guy. Manifest and counter ladies are also very nice.

Re: "5 minutes after I arrived at the DZ"...."a TI approaches me with a nasty tone of voice...."

HOW ?? can you have "landed" ANYwhere??? If you had Just arrived????? is it possible that he mistook YOU for someone else who DID land there... and whom he may have known WAS " less experienced "

case of mistaken identity???

I LIKE your reply... "i'm not your PAL, guy" hahaha good for you....

sometimes staff CAN overstep things,, in some misguided attempt to ... 1. exert control over unknown jumpers 2. emphasize their own "status" at the place 3. use some perceived safety concern to ream someone whom they do not know...

I have No horse in this race.... but it's best to let it go.... and maybe just write it off to "overzealous posturing"..

If your profile is accurate... and i have NO reason to think it Isn't.... just shrug it off and be glad that YOU are NOT their next Tandem Passenger !!!

It doesn't bother me entirely too much as I've been around skydivers since I started jumping 5 years ago. I know some of them are great and helpful to other jumpers, and some are complete dickheads that nobody cares about.

Point being, what if the AFF-I and the TI had this attitude toward some student with 2 jumps under his belt same day. Might make him second guess if he wants to get into the sport. I had my motorcycle parked over in the parking section, was hanging out there waiting for my load, and I could hear the AFF-I talking to a student concerning exit posture. The student was making a small typical new jumper mistake, easily correctable, and the AFF-I was practically screaming at this young guy "Are you going to do that up in the air huh?!! Well are you, tell me now!!!" I never received such treatment as a student jumper back at my home-dz, nor did any other students, and we all got our A stamps right on jump 25.

It's that kind of unprofessional bullshit that I'm talking about that leads people to say fuck it I don't get paid enough to put up with over ego'ed fuck heads on a power trip, hell I can go get a real job a put up that shit daily... People leave the real world to skydive to get away from all that shit they deal with during the week and the last thing they want to deal with is that shit following them to the dz.

And time & time again we see people wondering why we have so much turn over in the sport or why students don't return.... not all that hard to figure the reasons.

I didn't know they had an "experienced" landing area. I knew they had a student landing area...I guess the rest of the airport is the "experienced" area. Oh, I get it now...they thought you were a student and should have landed in the "student" area, right?

Every DZ seems to have their resident dickheads. There is no vaccine for it.

I hope you didn't let the bozos turn you off to the DZ....it really is a good place.

It doesn't bother me entirely too much as I've been around skydivers since I started jumping 5 years ago. I know some of them are great and helpful to other jumpers, and some are complete dickheads that nobody cares about.

Point being, what if the AFF-I and the TI had this attitude toward some student with 2 jumps under his belt same day. Might make him second guess if he wants to get into the sport. I had my motorcycle parked over in the parking section, was hanging out there waiting for my load, and I could hear the AFF-I talking to a student concerning exit posture. The student was making a small typical new jumper mistake, easily correctable, and the AFF-I was practically screaming at this young guy "Are you going to do that up in the air huh?!! Well are you, tell me now!!!" I never received such treatment as a student jumper back at my home-dz, nor did any other students, and we all got our A stamps right on jump 25.

Could it be that ALL skydivers are assholes, they just vary in circumference?

I mean, I'm a nice guy, and I'm still an asshole.

So, if you ran into an asshole and didn't know you were an asshole you would seem to be a bit of an asshole.

When one asshole meets another in it best to determine , Immediately, which asshole can cover the most ground.

An asshole that can be used as a hat is merely a fledgling.

so, the AFF-I/TI wanted to make it known that, they maybe have been born assholes but, AT LEAST they grew bigger each day of their lives.

ON the flip side, If they had quietly spoken to you and handled this like mature adults, they would have given you the opportunity to OUT-ASSHOLE them and, no-one, I mean NO-ONE, likes to be out-assholed.

I think the best asshole maneuver you could have pulled is to talk to them like an they were adults even though they were clearly demonstrating they were not. Once, they jumped straight to "big asshole" level, you're best bet would be to jump to "asshole you could use as a lasso" level by speaking to them calmly, rationally, YET, slightly condescendingly as you explain the truth to them. This is the level where you have the opportunity to reign in the "big asshole" like he was merely a little calf.

Then, you could have taken it step further and gone to "asshole so big that Jennifer Lopez could use it for a hula hoop" status and spoken to management about the "little assholes" who were acting like "big assholes" in the student area.

But, instead you chose to be the asshole that let the students feel the wrath of those out-of-control- assholes.

Not too cool. In fact, one say you're afraid of confrontation.

( I bet you thought I was going to say " In fact, one say you're an asshole.)

glad to see someone else say that. I have dealt with some of these issues and have had several friends quit not because they did not like jumping anymore, but because of the people. Funny thing is a lot of people have huge egos with no reason or experience that would warrant such and ego, and the people who are actually very very good typically have very little, to no ego about their skills at all. You say what most people are thinking, but either can't quite put their finger on the problem or don't have the guts to say so. I applaud you my friend, keep it up we need more folks like yourself who call it as they see it. Thank you for your posts.

First off, skydivers are just people. And in any group of people you will find vast differences in personalities. Kind, mean, loud, quiet, harsh, timid, funny, stoic...ect. Just because one chooses to partake in skydiving activity does not mean their basic personality make up changes. Although life experiences certainly plays a large role on personality development from birth, research shows personality is predetermined during fetal development. For you to expect one to change based on jump numbers is ludicrous.

Sencond, the point the OP was trying to make, was that the AFF's may have believed he was a student, not someone with 2000 jumps. And certainly you would not argue that students should be treated respectfully and nurtured during their progression rather than scolded.

I have been around this sport my entire life, 46 yrs. By the time I was four, I was being in the way and pain in the ass doing what ever they would let me do and having fun, we always had lots of cool shit to do on a working airport/farm. By the time I was seven, I was packing a lot of student gear, T-10's and doing a lot of other flunky jobs.

The point is, in all that time I have seen countless people leave the sport, now when I was a kid, it was not always out in the open or as a kid you don't know about politics or you don't see the forest for the trees, we're kids.

But now, after starting to play in the reindeer games @ age 16 till now, it's easier to look back over my life time and see the history in a new way, because as a young man and now a middle aged man, I have seen so many people, good people who only wanted to come skydive on the weekends to forget about that asshole boss or bitchy ex wife who took all your shit & kids from you...

Everyone came here for the same reasons, mostly. We all want the same thing overall and in most people, it's that it is a great escape from the daily grind of life, a place where your free to laugh and smile and have fun with no worries about the bullshit of life and at the end of the day enjoy a beer with friends..... I know when I'm freefall I'm always stressed out about the rent or my boss wanting the report by next Friday.

When you have the same repeated people being assholes and treating people the way the OP was or as others have stated.... there is no excuse for that from staff, it's still a business. And when you shit on peoples "happy get away from life place" it no longer becomes the fun place to hang out, it becomes the place where you hope so & so are not there this weekend, again.

Not everyone lives in a place where they have a lot of choices of other places to go jump, so they are forced to quit. I have seen it time & time again, this is not matter of having the guts to say it or not, it's a matter of telling the truth about the conduct of skydivers and the stupid politics people play, what is funny for one group of a "skygods", is just a bunch of assholes who are shitting the fun to others.